T-Mobile Netherlands is taking a page out of its American sister company's strategy and introducing zero-rated music streaming for customers who take a plan with 6 GB of data or more per month.
T-Mobile said at a press conference in Amsterdam that most customers are streaming music only over Wi-Fi. With the zero-rated data offer ('Datavrije Muziek'), the operator expects a 40 percent increase in streaming usage.
Martin Knauer, commercial director at T-Mobile NL, said that consumers are stuck in a "mental bundle cage", while the mobile network offers them enough capacity to take advantage of more digital content and build a "digital lifestyle". According to figures from the recording industry association NVPI, streaming is driving strong growth in the digital music market in the Netherlands. Streaming sales were up 52 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2016.
In addition to Deezer, with which T-Mobile already has a partnership, the free data offer extends to the services Tidal, Hits NL, Napster and Nederland.fm, representatives of which were also at the press conference. Other services can sign up free for the T-Mobile offer.
While Apple Music is not available at launch, T-Mobile said it should be added within a few weeks. T-Mobile's sister company in Germany already has a partnership with Apple Music. T-Mobile Netherlands said its own partnership with Deezer, started in 2012, will not change.
The operator also did not mention Spotify, which already has a partnership with rival operator KPN. According to Telecompaper research, of the Dutch have a music app on their phone, and Spotify is the most popular, on around a quarter of smartphones in the country.
The free data option can be activated by qualifying customers from 11 October. From then none of the data used for the included music services will count towards the customer's monthly data allowance. However, they will have to make due with a maximum bandwidth of 384 Kbps for the music services.
In response to questions about whether the offering is in line with net neutrality rules, T-Mobile said it meets EU regulations, based on the guidelines issued by the European regulator Berec. A spokesman for Dutch regulator ACM said it plans to investigate T-Mobile's offer.
The announcement comes a day ahead of a vote in the upper house of parliament on changes to Dutch legislation to implement the EU's net neutrality regulation. The Dutch government has criticised the EU's rules, saying they aren't strong enough on issues such as zero-rating, which to date has been banned under the Netherlands' own net neutrality law passed in 2012.
